What To Do When You’re Going Through a Dry Spell

Life has been really hard ’round these parts. All areas of my world are being tested: my body and immune system, my relationships and friendships, the state of my work life, the entirety of my emotional fortitude. Everything, everything feels like it’s in upheaval.

And it’s been wreaking havoc on my sex life.

And not just my sex life, but my erotic life—the way I feel in my body as a sexual woman, the attention (and intention) I give to my sexual expression, the space I take up in that place and the amount of energy that is available there.

I can always tell when I’m under-fucked because the symptoms of this show up vibrantly in all areas of my life. I live more in my head rather than fully inhabiting my body. I feel creatively dried out. I feel especially disconnected from my partner, as though the cord that keeps our love electrified has been severed.

I become irritable. And painfully cynical. And I feel so ungrounded.

I also have a lot of nocturnal emissions—which, in their own way, give me a sense of release but really just goes to further the sexual tension.

It would seem that the easiest cure to being under-fucked would be to fuck more. And sometimes that fixes things. Sometimes all it takes is me getting bold and wild and jumping my partner’s bones, kind of overriding my emotions and my body’s current state of inaction. Sometimes that works.

But during these particular times, wherein I feel deep uncertainty and generally overwhelmed by how up-in-the-air everything feels, sex is the furthest thing from my mind and from my body.

It’s hard to feel sexy when your entire world at the moment feels so utterly unsexy.

One of my philosophies as a sexuality doula is that, for women, everything is connected. Love-life is connected to home-life is connected to work-life is connected to emotional wellbeing is connected to sex-life. And if just one of those things are out of alignment—say, emotional wellbeing feels funky—everything else (particularly the sex) feels off.

That’s where I am right now: feeling off—as in not turned on. And there’s no way that I can be present for my erotic desires, let alone engage in sex wholeheartedly—whether that is with myself or with my partner—if I don’t feel totally aligned.

So. . . what is there to do? If having sex isn’t the automatic cure here of being under-fucked, what should I do instead?

Because there’s got to be something done about it, right? I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to work to change the situation. I cannot stay here in this place of un-sexuality. It’s so uncomfortable. It’s so unnatural. I cannot stay here. I cannot stay here.

My body, really, wants to be left alone, to be left untouched only until it cannot stand to be without physical contact any longer.

My body, honestly, wants to surrender to all the madness that’s happening, to not try to fix anything, but to let it all be—including this dry spell.

And it’s hard, because dry spells (and rough patches) often feel like they’ll last forever. And sometimes they do.

But usually, at least in my personal experience, there’s always another side to the inactivity. I know that it’s not totally resistant to the kisses my partner leaves on my shoulders or the glances we exchange while watching television.

Sometimes, it’s best to just wait it out.

Last year in my self-defense class, I learned that waiting is just as active of a choice as fighting is; that waiting it out can be an effective way to get through a situation alive or with at least a little less emotional or physical damage.

My teachers told us that waiting lets us breath and think about what to do next.

And so for this I wait. And breathe. And think about what to do next to get through the situation alive.